Firefighters from Kent have helped in the rescue of a 60-year-old woman who was trapped underneath a building after the earthquake in Turkey.

Three technical rescue firefighters from Kent Fire and Rescue have shared their experiences of being part of the international search and rescue team following the devastating earthquake.

Jim Chaston, who is based at the technical rescue unit at Maidstone fire station, said: "As you can imagine it's pretty much a scene of devastation it's a really large city that's almost completely devastated by the earthquake."

He spoke about a rescue they had helped with, saying: "We ran a dog and the dog gave us a live indication that there was an alive human scent in there.

"When we explored a bit more we actually made verbal contact with the casualty and with a bit of hard work and a bit of tunnelling in, we managed to make a small enough hole to get our smallest member through into the void and make contact with the casualty which was obviously the first part of the rescue.

"We then had to work a way of making that hole big enough to get her out.

"I think the whole thing took about three hours, as you can imagine [there was] a lot of local interest around us and just a great feeling of elation when we eventually managed to rescue her."

KFRS firefighter Brad Rebbeck, a crew manager based at Deal fire station, said: "I was lucky enough to play quite a central part in the first rescue we did with the 60-year-old lady, tunnelling through the building.

"We've actually made that much difference to someone's life who, she wouldn't be here if we hadn't have done what we did.

"It's an experience I'll never forget, that's for sure."

The earthquakes - the worst of which had a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale - cut a swath of destruction stretching hundreds of miles across south-eastern Turkey and neighbouring Syria, toppling thousands of buildings.

Aftershocks then rattled tangled piles of metal and concrete, making search efforts even more perilous, while freezing temperatures made them ever-more urgent.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, says 13 million of the country’s 85 million people were affected in some way by the disaster.

Martin Stanley, a KFRS technical rescue firefighter usually based at Canterbury fire station, said: "I've never seen anything like it, it's complete devastation, people are just broken.

"I don't think I can explain to someone with words what it's like, the whole city is completely devastated, it's unbelievable."

The UK International Search and Rescue Team – which the three men are a part of – has also rescued two adults who had been trapped under rubble for 120 hours, as well as a two-year-old girl who had been under the rubble for 101 hours.

The men were deployed to Turkey on February 7, the day after the tragic earthquake took place.

A UK-wide appeal to help the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria has been launched

Agencies including the British Red Cross and Oxfam have come together in aid of the Disasters Emergency Committee.

Bosses of a Turkish restaurant in Larkfield have said they will donate their entire weekly income to help people in Turkey.

Alim-Et will be using the money to buy essential items such as blankets, baby and children’s clothes, socks, baby food, toiletries and canned food.